Wavelength
by ThePet
Summary: After a tragic accident involving an Ancient device, McKay and Sheppard must work together in a race against time to save a life dear to both of them. And all they need is to be on the same wavelength...(McShep friendship, slash-free) (4 UP)
1. Default Chapter

A/N Hello! This is my first Atlantis fic. I'm working concurrently on a Van Helsing story. The present attempt is rather depressing to begin with but will hopefully get less so :-) Story features mainly Shep and McKay with appearances by the other main characters. Warning: sort of character death. Note sort of. Feedback very much appreciated, especially since this is my first go in this fandom...sorry for any weird mistakes, my medical knowledge is rubbish (I have a phobia). Any, hope you like it!

**Wavelength**

Vibrant. Vigorous. Funny. Those expressive eyes, the boyish grin, the charming smile – so fundamentally alive. The eyes were closed now, the face expressionless, lifeless; the body still, silent, _empty_.

McKay stared down at Sheppard's motionless body in a kind of daze. He had woken up in the infirmary cursing the Major for messing with things he shouldn't and activating things they didn't know anything about and it was all his fault and I could have been killed and…is he okay, anyway?

Beckett had placed a hand on his shoulder sadly, wearily. No, he had explained quietly. Major Sheppard was not okay. He was very far from okay.

He wasn't going to be okay, either.

McKay sat silently on the edge of the bed he had woken up in, listening to Beckett give the standard speech about how he'd done all he could but the Major's heart had stopped, they'd taken too long to resuscitate, there was no brain activity…

"The machine's keeping him alive," the doctor said softly, "but there's nothing more I can do."

_But he was fine!_ McKay's mind kept yelling, irrationally. _He was fine just half an hour ago, he was laughing and joking and trying to get a rise out of me and now he's lying there like a lump of clay…it isn't right. It can't be. Something's wrong here._

McKay caught the words, 'tragic accident…' and looked up to see Elizabeth Weir standing in the doorway, Ford and Teyla at her heels. Beckett repeated his sorry-it's-over-you-missed-it speech for them. McKay watched their faces crumble; he observed, as though from a great distance, Weir's struggle to keep her emotions under control, Teyla's lovely dark eyes filling with shock and grief, Ford's open-mouthed look of shocked disbelief. McKay could not pity them; he was too overwhelmed with his own feelings, feelings he could not properly identify. There was shock there, but no grief – it was too early for that. He just couldn't get a handle on it. Couldn't get to grips with the idea of John Sheppard being dead, being gone, from Atlantis, from the universe, from the life of a cynical and socially stunted scientist whom, against both their better judgements, the Major had chosen to befriend.

"So what…what happens now?" Rodney looked at Beckett, who turned to him with that sad, patient, sympathetic look on his face again.

"As I said, he's being kept alive only by machines…"

"You're going to switch it off." Why had that only just occurred to him? McKay felt sick. For an instant he hated Beckett, hated how he could write the Major off so calmly.

"Rodney…he's gone, there's nothing…"

"Stop saying that!" McKay snapped, furiously, drawing to his full height and stepping close into Beckett's personal space. The doctor took a step back, startled. "How can you just give up on him like that? You can't switch him off like he's a computer or something. He's a human being. He's alive…he's breathing…"

Everyone was staring at McKay now, and oddly, he felt as though Sheppard himself was staring hardest of all. Wanting Rodney to fight for him. The scientist studied their faces, saw pity and understanding there, but no help, not of the kind he needed. He locked gazes with Weir, silently pleading. She bit her lip and turned to Beckett.

"Carson…you're absolutely certain that there's no hope? There's no chance he might…wake up?"

Beckett shook his head, apparently unable to bring himself to actually voice the inevitable again.

Weir met Rodney's eyes again.

"I trust Dr. Beckett's opinion," she said, quietly.

McKay glared at her, betrayed. He turned to Ford, who looked stricken and helpless. Teyla, however, spoke up.

"I do not understand the nature of the situation, precisely. If Major Sheppard's heart is beating and he is breathing…"

"There's no brain activity, lass," Beckett explained, shooting an almost apologetic look at McKay as he spoke. "His body is still working because the machines tell it to, but – well, as I say," he looked at the floor, as though he was personally responsible for what had happened, "his brain has stopped functioning, and there's nothing in the world can bring him back."

McKay had sat silently throughout these exchanges, his brain slowly accepting what his heart, as yet, could not. Sheppard was gone. His body lived but it was mindless, incapable of supporting itself. Whatever the nature of that mind had been – electrical impulses, energy, even (God forbid) a soul – it had departed.

"Sorry," Rodney said, quickly and sharply, to Beckett. The doctor looked surprised, but said nothing, merely squeezed his shoulder. McKay found his gaze drawn to the bed where Sheppard – or his mortal remains – lay; and his heart leapt into his throat. An instant later it was gone, but – he could have sworn he had seen the Major sitting up, staring at him accusingly. Shaken, nauseated, McKay turned wide eyes to Beckett and the others. No one else appeared to have seen, although Weir was actually standing by Sheppard's bed, looking down at him, saying goodbye, Rodney supposed. Was he imagining things? It was the shock, that was all. Also he'd just received a lesser version of the _electric_ shock that had injured…that had incapacitated…that had killed Sheppard. No wonder he was a mess. No wonder his hands were trembling. No wonder he was seeing things. He was _traumatised._ He considered mentioning the hallucination to Beckett, decided he didn't want to give the doctor a reason to keep him in for observation. Usually Rodney was happy to spend time in the infirmary, it being a good excuse to relax and actually get some sleep, and the food being decent…but this time he couldn't imagine anything worse than being made to lie still with his own thoughts.

He'll_ be doing that forever_, McKay thought, looking down at Sheppard – and shivered.

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The lab bustled with activity, as always. Janet DuBois, a young research assistant whose PhD had not yet been officially granted, but whose ATA gene made her worthy of the expedition, sat examining the remains of the device that had electrocuted Sheppard. She worked under the direction of Peter Grodin. Both of them looked up as McKay entered the room; they, and the rest of the lab, fell silent.

"How is Major Sheppard?" Eyes wide and anxious behind his round spectacles, Dr. Zelenka made his way through the maze of concerned scientists to McKay's side. Rodney glanced around at the worried faces. Sheppard was – had been – popular, apparently, even among the city's geek population. He hadn't wanted to talk about it, especially not to the entire lab, but the Czech had given him no choice. After all, they had a right to know, and would have found out soon enough – presumably Weir was planning an announcement, but hadn't got around to it yet.

"He…uh…" McKay hesitated, surprised at the sound of his own voice; it was shaky, throaty, his usually strident and nasal tones softened and stultified. "Following the – the accident, Major Sheppard is currently," he swallowed, "being kept alive by a life support system. That system," he realised he was wringing his hands, jammed them angrily into the pockets of his trousers, "will be switched off tomorrow morning."

There was a horrified silence. No one seemed to have anything to say. Zelenka closed his eyes, muttered something in his native language – a prayer for the dead, perhaps, or the equivalent of 'rest in peace'. The Czech laid a hand on McKay's shoulder in a gesture of wordless sympathy. Rodney turned away from him, glared at the floor.

"That's all," he muttered. "Get back to work. And figure out what that is," he pointed at the unknown, murderous Ancient device. Then he strode right through the lab and into his own adjacent quarters, ignoring the stares the other scientists sent after him, ignoring in particular one woman's mutter of, 'callous bastard', and part of her friend's answer, 'his fault anyway…' which he heard as he slammed the door. He didn't hear, however, Zelenka say sadly to Grodin,

"He is very upset," and the Englishman reply grimly,

"Yes…we'll have to keep an eye on him."

He didn't even notice that most of the stares following him were sympathetic, not accusatory. But then, he never had.

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Five hours earlier 

Sheppard opened his eyes slowly, wincing as blinding light poured straight into his brain. _What the hell was that?_ He wondered, and following that, _I got knocked on my ass. Why didn't that hurt? _Carefully he turned his head, expecting pain, getting none. His vision was out of focus, however, blurred and distorted. He felt oddly distant from his surroundings. Hence his suspicion that he must've hurt his head – and yet, still no pain. Anywhere.

His vision clearing, he made out the motionless, apparently unconscious form of Rodney McKay lying beside him. _Damn! He's gonna be so pissed at me…_ lifting a hand he tried to activate his radio. Nothing happened. _Shock must've knocked it out…_

He rose slowly to his feet, turning his back on the blackened and shattered Ancient device they had found in a previously unexplored part of the city; a device he had unintentionally activated and apparently destroyed. It had damn near killed him, he suspected. He leaning over Rodney, thought he saw the scientist's chest rise and fall, bent to take his pulse to be sure.

His hand touched empty air.

What the hell…? 

He tried again. Still nothing. Dazed, without thinking, he tried with the other hand. Same effect. He turned to the nearest console and tried to touch that. He couldn't. His hand simply seemed to pass through the thing, _into_ it, disappearing…

It was then that he spotted his own limp body lying next to Rodney's.

"Ah, crap!" it was hardly fitting, but it was the first phrase that sprang to mind.

"Major Sheppard…" he jumped, swung around, saw no one. Then he realised it was Weir's voice, coming over the intercom. "Major Sheppard? Are you there? Answer me, please. Major? Dr. McKay?"

Sheppard took a deep breath, leaned over his own still form and shouted into the radio,

"Elizabeth! We need help!"

There was no reply.

Sheppard sank onto the floor, his head swimming. He wasn't sure what he thought about death and the afterlife, but he certainly hadn't expected this. What was he…a ghost? Some kind of wraith? He winced slightly. Bad choice of word. Ghost would do just fine for the moment. And yet he couldn't believe it, couldn't accept that this was some sort of supernatural thing. There had to be an explanation.

A few minutes later, the medical team arrived, and Sheppard's day got worse.

Not one of them was able to see or hear him.

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A short time later, in the infirmary, Sheppard watched Beckett desperately trying to revive his body, while McKay lay limply on the next bed, attended by a nurse. Sheppard watched as the chief medic fought to bring him back, expecting all the time to feel a tug and a rushing sensation and to suddenly wake up gasping in his body again, just like one of those ghost movies. It didn't happen, though Sheppard realised his heart must be beating now, because Beckett had put away his resuscitation equipment and was rigging the Major up to some kind of machine. They were scanning his brain, he realised. With a vague sense of horror, he also realised what they would find…

A few minutes later he watched as McKay regained consciousness under the eye of a defeated-looking Beckett.

"The damned idiot," Rodney was gesticulating, "I _told_ him not to touch that thing! We had no idea what it did. I could have been _killed_, for God's sake, but would he listen to me? When does he ever?" a pause. McKay was staring at Sheppard's motionless form. His face changed as his eyes flicked to the life support machine.

"Is he okay, anyway?"

"I'm sorry, Rodney," Beckett said quietly. McKay stared at the doctor as though he'd grown three heads.

"What?"

"We did all we could, but his heart had stopped when we got to you. By the time we managed to resuscitate, it was too late. There was no brain activity."

McKay's mouth opened and shut like a fish's. In other circumstances seeing that expression on his face might have amused Sheppard. He was faintly amused as it was.

"The machine's keeping him alive," Beckett said softly, "but there's nothing more I can do."

McKay stared at Beckett, his eyes wide and dazed. Sheppard felt the absurd desire to ask him if he was all right. Rodney might have said something – it would probably have been, 'wuh?' – but the door opened and Weir, Ford and Teyla came in, all three looking tense and anxious, not one of them, Sheppard suspected, honestly believing that he might be dead, because he couldn't. Just couldn't get to grips with the idea.

Beckett explained again what had happened, how he couldn't do anything more. Sheppard couldn't help being touched to see how stricken everyone looked. McKay seemed stunned. His eyes were a little glazed. Sheppard wasn't surprised – the poor guy had been electrocuted, after all.

"So what…what happens now?" Rodney asked, unsteadily.

"As I said, he's being kept alive only by machines…"

"You're going to switch it off." McKay sounded sickened, as though this had not occurred to him. It hasn't occurred to Sheppard, either. He felt his gut wrench, the sudden cramp doubling him over. They were going to turn him off. To kill him. _But I'm still here!_

"I'm still here!" he yelled at them, looking desperately from one to the other. "You can't turn it off. I'm not dead. Come on, you guys…look for an alternative…there must be something…"

"…You can't switch him off like he's a computer or something. He's a human being. He's alive…he's breathing…" Sheppard gave up shouting in time to hear McKay say this, sounding furious. _Right on, Rodney_, the Major thought. _You tell 'em._

Weir asked Beckett if there was any hope – not sounding very hopeful. Teyla seemed to be backing Rodney up too – but Beckett went through his explanation again. They looked more convinced now. Gripped by a sudden fear that Beckett was going to switch off the machine _right now_, Sheppard darted to the bed where his body lay – sparing it a pained glance - and lay on top of it, hoping in a frantic and confused way that somehow it might reintegrate him with the – well, semi-corpse. Needless to say nothing happened. Then he heard McKay apologising to Beckett, in a tone that suggested he too had given up. Sheppard sat up sharply and glared at him, angry and betrayed.

And for a second, a split second – he could've sworn Rodney had seen him.

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Sheppard followed McKay to his lab, thinking with some annoyance that the scientist should hardly be considering going back to work following such a devastating bereavement. He talked to Rodney all the way, hoping to break through again, that McKay would hear him and tell Beckett to do something useful rather than all this crazy talk about turning off the Major's life support. Sheppard had a deadline now. Tomorrow morning, his body would be gone.

McKay went into the lab, which effectively stopped all conversation – everyone knew about the accident, it seemed. Sheppard was touched by the scientists' concern; he was even more touched by the waver in Rodney's voice when he told them all what had happened. He felt a tremendous urge to slap the stupid bitch who called him a callous bastard, and punch her stupider friend who'd said that the accident was Sheppard's own fault.

Rodney went to his quarters after that, ignoring the comments, though Sheppard was sure he'd heard them. The scientist went immediately to a pile of MREs lying near his desk – typical bachelor's quarters, these – and rummaged through them.

"Charming," Sheppard told him. "I'm dead and you're thinking about eating. And don't come out with the hypoglycaemia thing again."

McKay picked up one of the boxes. Sheppard stared at it.

"Hey, that's got lemon juice on it. Pay attention to what you're doing, Rodney. Don't want us both lying on slabs in the morgue – hey, though, maybe we could be ghosts together. Just you and me, haunting Atlantis for the rest of eternity." McKay glanced at the MRE, did a comical double-take and threw it aside, selecting something else, muttering to himself. Sheppard shrugged. "Probably for the best. You and me together, alone, for eternity? I think I'd prefer oblivion."

McKay tore open the box and began eating the stuff inside, without even warming it up.

"Ew, that looks disgusting. Kinda like dog food. How can you eat that?"

Apparently McKay agreed with him, because he shoved the box ahead and stared glumly at the black screen of his laptop, with a vacant expression on his face.

"Come on, McKay. We're working to a deadline here. You saw me once. I know you know I'm here, on some level. That's why you freaked out when Beckett said he was going to turn off the life support machine, isn't it? Because you knew I wasn't gone. Just pay me some attention, already. I'm right _here_." He reached out and tried to grab McKay's arm. Sheppard felt nothing, but the scientist jumped slightly and glanced down at the limb as though he felt _something_ – a rush of air perhaps. But he merely shivered and wandered across the room to pull on a dressing gown.

"Look, we're running out of time. What do you want me to do? If this was a movie I'd – I dunno, possess your body or talk to you telepathically, or something. Or maybe we could get a medium like that guy in 'Ghost' – well, maybe not exactly like the thing in 'Ghost'. I'm not planning on doing any sexy pottery sessions with you, thanks. Now what are you doing?"

McKay had picked up something from his bedside table – a little green device that looked like a small turtle. The personal shield he had found soon after they came to Atlantis. He turned it over in his hands, staring at it. And Sheppard realised he knew what McKay was thinking.

_Weird…my fondest memory of John is him throwing me off a balcony…and I think he enjoyed it too much…but it was the look on his face, that grin, like a kid playing with a new toy. I felt the same. We really _connected_. It's never been that easy before, I've never felt comfortable around anyone so quickly. Except my cat. And she's a cat, it's just not the same thing…doesn't count…oh and obviously Jimmy but he doesn't count either…_

It all came rapidly, a spew of not-exactly-words. Sheppard said, "Rodney, you think like you speak. How the hell do you understand yourself?" He thought, _Jimmy? Who's Jimmy?_ And had a flash of a young boy with dark hair and a warm lopsided grin a lot like Rodney's. Then he thought, _you never called me John when I was alive. _And it was gone – the image, the thoughts. Gone. Damn! Why hadn't he tried to communicate then? But he'd been too startled by the prospect of actually being able to see inside McKay's mind. Scary in there.

"Rodney," he said aloud, "I think we're going to have to step things up a little. Don't panic, now…"

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A/N Ooh, what next? Please review :-)


	2. Part 2

A/N Welcome to the second part of this increasingly weird fic. Do not adjust your set... Thanks very much for the feedback so far, it's highly appreciated :-) Hope you guys enjoy this next bit. All mistakes are mine...oh, and I don't own SGA, by the way. 'Cos if I did, everyone would walk around in their underwear. It's such a pretty-fest ;-)

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In the infirmary, Carson Beckett stood over Major Sheppard's lifeless form, wondering miserably if there wasn't more he could have done. If he had arrived more quickly, made a decision faster, persevered a little longer – would it have made any difference?

He knew, in his heart, that the answer was no – but that didn't stop him feeling guilty. The Major had been crucial to the running of the city; to put it in more human terms, he had been the life and soul of Atlantis. Beckett wasn't sure how the city would function without him, but he did know that everyone in it had lost an important authority figure and role model; worse, many of those had also lost a dear friend and colleague.

He remembered the stricken faces of Dr. Weir and the Major's offworld team: Weir's carefully hidden shock and despair, Teyla's sorrow, the destruction of Ford's belief in the immortality of those he loved, and Rodney's seeming devastation. He had seen the scientist panic and rant on many occasions before, but when Beckett had explained that there was no choice but to switch off Sheppard's life support, McKay's reaction had been astonishing. For the first time in their friendship, Beckett had actually found Rodney physically intimidating. Not that he wasn't a big man, but his twitchy personality tended to offset any threat he might have otherwise presented due to his bulk. When the man had leaned into his personal space, trembling with fury, Beckett had actually been concerned that Rodney – who was among the least physically aggressive people the doctor had ever met, preferring verbal blows as he did – might be about to strike him.

Carson sighed, shook his head sadly as he gazed down at Sheppard's empty shell.

"It's a bad business, Major," he murmured. "You leaving us like you have. Bad for the city, and for the people in it. And especially for Rodney, I fear."

If Sheppard had heard him, he might have disputed that. _Especially for _me, he might have argued. But the Major was in McKay's quarters, still trying to break through to him in a desperate struggle to save his own life. He was currently preparing himself to do something he had never expected to contemplate: he was going to enter Rodney. Or at the very least, pass through the scientist's body and attempt to use the 'contact' to establish some sort of telepathic link with him.

"Okay, Rodney," Sheppard took a deep breath – or thought he did; was it even possible to take breaths in a non-corporeal form? Waving the philosophy aside, the Major stood up and leaned over McKay, who had been sitting on the edge of his bed for the last half hour, fingering the turtle brooch and looking miserable. "I don't think this'll hurt, but I can't be sure. It may freak you out considerably though, so, hey, don't say I didn't warn ya." With that, closing his eyes, Sheppard moved forward.

His body passed through McKay's without any sensation of physical presence except a sudden rush of warmth – it was like crouching beneath a hand-dryer in a public bathroom. It was extraordinary; Sheppard was enveloped by McKay, and he gasped as he touched the man's mind again, this time more deeply and fully than before. He saw images, words, flashes of what he assumed were memories. He saw the handsome young boy again – _Jimmy –_ and a tall, husky, livid man, facing off with the kid. He saw a smaller, frightened looking boy staring hopelessly from one to the other – Rodney himself, aged five, Sheppard realised. All this came and went in an instant, but the feelings associated with it were powerful, as were a host of other images. Jimmy lying very still in a white bed. A pretty but cold-faced woman with her hands resting upon a small coffin. A complex rush of horror, terror, guilt, grief, anger, and finally, hatred that burned like ice on fire hidden behind a cold, sneering disdain; each emotion accompanied by a new, racing image; and then Sheppard saw the boy on the bed again, morphing into himself, his own still form lying in the infirmary, and Beckett becoming the tall florid man standing over him, turning angrily to someone out of view and snarling, _look at what you did! You stupid cowardly little brat, look at what you did!_

And then it all came to an abrupt end. McKay almost leapt to his feet and Sheppard, startled, fell to the floor, lying there stunned. The whole experience had lasted maybe a second. Hell. Did Rodney's mind always move that fast? No wonder he talked like a machine gun spitting bullets.

"Stop it!" the voice made Sheppard jump. He looked up to see McKay standing almost on top of him, pacing back and forth with his jaw set and his eyes wide. "Just stop it," he muttered, apparently talking to himself. "There was nothing you could've done," he added, defiantly. "Nothing." He dropped onto the bed again, his face twisted and his hands clenched.

Sheppard pulled himself up and moved to crouch at McKay's feet, looking up into his friend's face. It had happened again – the chance for communication had passed him by, with the Major too stunned by the rapid and intense working of Rodney's mind to make contact. He had to try again, but he needed McKay to relax first. _What do I do? _Sheppard wondered. _Try to get a subliminal message through that he really needs to get drunk?_ He contemplated waiting until Rodney had gone to sleep – if the man _did_ sleep – but the prospect of infiltrating McKay's dreams was simply too alarming. Not that he had no desire to see Sam Carter performing sexual acts in a basque and thong but…_oh God, I didn't want to know that. _What else had he picked up without realising it in those brief moments inside Rodney's head? He carefully searched his memory but found nothing obvious, despite a persistent sense of fear and hatred of the angry-faced man, and a sense of loss whenever he thought of the mysterious Jimmy. Maybe not so mysterious; the identity of the kid was pretty obvious, but Sheppard had no time to think about that now. If and when he got through this, he'd sit Rodney down and ask him exactly what had happened to his older brother all those years ago, and did he want to talk about it, but none of that would happen if Sheppard didn't find some way to keep himself alive.

He was planning his next attempt when a knock came at Rodney's door. McKay got up slowly, stretching – his spine crackled horribly, making Sheppard wince – and wandered over to it, looking pissed off. But then, when didn't he? He was still holding the personal shield, Sheppard noticed.

Beckett had come to call. The Major scowled at the stocky Scotsman as he came into the room.

"Body killer," Sheppard muttered, but without heat. None of this was Carson's fault. _No, it's my own damned fault._

"How're you doing, Rodney?" The doctor asked, in a soothing-bedside-manner voice.

"I'm fine," came the brisk and bouncy response, accompanied by a truly horrible attempt at a cheery grin.

"I see," murmured Beckett. "May I?"

Rodney shrugged and gestured spasmodically at a chair covered with dregs of technology. Beckett moved them carefully to Rodney's desk and sat down.

"I'm very sorry about the Major," the doctor said, turning warm and sympathetic eyes on the now pacing scientist. "I know you'd become close."

"Close? Not really," McKay muttered.

"Charming," Sheppard said to him. "Don't value my friendship, huh? Then why're you carrying that shield about with you like that?"

Beckett seemed to have thought the same thing, because he glanced briefly and sadly at the little green device Rodney was turning over and over in his hands.

"I wondered if you wanted some company," Beckett tried again. He seemed uncomfortable, and Sheppard understood why: things had got to be bad when McKay became monosyllabic.

"Well, that's very kind of you Carson but actually, I was just about to do some work so…"

"It's past midnight, Rodney."

"Really?" McKay was surprised, but Sheppard was astonished. He'd been totally unaware of so much time passing by. Had Rodney really been sitting on his bed fiddling with that brooch for all that time?

"Aye, and I think you should try to get some sleep. You had a bloody awful shock today…"

"Yeah, electricity'll do that," McKay agreed, impatiently.

"I dinnae mean that, and you know it," Beckett seemed to be losing a little patience himself. "Look, lad, we've already lost the Major. To be brutally honest, the last thing this city needs is for another of its most important people to be out of action as well. You need to take care of yourself."

"Nice one, Carson," Sheppard agreed. "Guilt-trip him. It really works. Kamirikov used to do it all the time in Moscow." He blinked. "How did I know that?"

McKay had deflated under Beckett's insistence, gentle as it was. He looked very tried.

"Look, Carson – I appreciate your concern, I really do, but I'm a big boy, okay? And besides," he ran his hand wearily through his short dark hair, "I really don't think I could sleep right now."

"I could give you a sedative," Beckett suggested. McKay started to refuse, but Sheppard saw in the doctor's offer an unexpected windfall of an opportunity. Leaning close to McKay, he hissed in the scientist's ear,

"You really need that sedative, y'know? It'll be good for you. Get nice and stoned and see if it slows that wacky brain of yours down any."

McKay nibbled his lip, hesitating, then shrugged. "Okay, whatever. Nothing heavy."

"Good lad," Beckett told him, and proceeded to pull a small plastic container out of his pocket. "I came prepared," he explained, dropping two small pills into McKay's hand. "Take those with water when you're ready for bed. They work quite fast."

Rodney still looked unhappy about it, but he held on to the little tablets anyway. He stared at them silently as Beckett got up to leave.

"Take care," he told Rodney, who didn't look at him, his gaze still fixed on the drugs. As Beckett left, however, he called after the doctor.

"Carson? Thanks for stopping by and y'know – being my counsellor and – and drug dealer and all."

Beckett smiled warmly. "I was hoping just to be your friend."

"You're always that," McKay told him, with a genuine answering smile, then shook his head as though annoyed with himself for being so soppy. Beckett smiled again and shut the door behind him.

"That was very cute," Sheppard said. "A heartwarming moment. Now take the damn pills."

"Oh, shut up," McKay growled, but there was an undercurrent of affection to it. Sheppard jumped.

"You heard me!" he moved excitedly to stand at Rodney's side. "You actually heard me! Have you been hearing me all the time and just…"

"You're still looking after me," Rodney was murmuring. He opened a door, revealing a sink with a mirror over it. He splashed some water on his face then stood gazing at his reflection.

"Oh great. So you weren't talking to me at all. You've just gone crazy."

McKay ignored him, unsurprisingly.

"So who's looking after you, Rodney?" Sheppard asked, conversationally. "The little voices have a vested interest in your welfare, huh?" he glanced at Rodney's face in the mirror, saw his own face reflected next to it, the grim mocking smile on it fading as he took in McKay's sad and helpless expression. He looked like a small, lost child.

"Hey, come on, you think you've got it bad, what about me? I'm the one who's getting switched off in the morning."

"I'm sorry," Rodney said. And this time, Sheppard was sure the scientist was responding to him, though he didn't look in Sheppard's direction and spoke so softly he appeared to be addressing the remarks to himself.

_He thinks he is,_ it slowly dawned on Sheppard. _He's just thinking aloud, answering his own thoughts coming out of his subconscious – but I'm _making_ those thoughts, I'm putting them in there. But he doesn't know that. He thinks he's talking to – who? God? _The Major dismissed that one quickly, but the true answer would have come to him had Rodney not provided it himself in the next instant. Wearily, he repeated,

"I'm sorry, Jimmy."

"Jimmy!" Sheppard exclaimed. "You think I'm Jimmy, you think the voice you're hearing is his because you hear it in your head all the time. What, he's the voice of your conscience, or something? And you're mixing him up with me…well, that's flattering."

It was also the reason Sheppard's communication was unsuccessful. He was getting through now and then, but McKay was simply attributing the things Sheppard said to the part of his own mind that spoke with the voice of his dead brother.

"I'm not Jimmy," Sheppard told McKay, as the scientist began to strip off his uniform. The Major frowned. "You really have to do that now? I guess you do. Okay. Your quarters after all." He paused, watching McKay undress since there wasn't really anything else to look at. He stripped to his boxers. Sheppard noticed that he'd lost a little weight and that the muscles of his upper body and legs were firmer and more defined. Offworld missions seemed to be doing the scientist good. But he had more important things to do than stare at Rodney's improved muscle tone.

He followed McKay as Rodney climbed into bed and pulled the topsheet loosely over himself. He'd collected a glass of water and was holding the little pills in his hand.

"We may not need those now," Sheppard told him. "All you need to do is notice how I'm not your brother. I'm what, twenty-five years older than he was to start with? And look nothing like him. And I'm not Canadian. Is this doing anything at all? What do I have to do to get through to you – say something emotive? Will that work? Okay, let's try it. I need to stop getting inside your head, and fast – I'm starting to talk like you. Emotive, emotive…" he thought for a moment. "Canada sucks." A pause, in which McKay hesitated over the sleeping pills and finally laid them on the bedside table, got up, grabbed his laptop and settled back into bed with it resting on his stomach.

"Sam Carter sucks," Sheppard tried. "Oh, God, I really shouldn't've phrased it like that."

Still no response. The Major was getting exasperated, and underneath that, a powerful current of fear was beginning to cramp his gut. They were running out of time…

"Okay, how about this? You're my snugly-bugly-woobikins and I love you."

McKay looked directly at Sheppard, an expression of unmitigated disgust on his face, and said,

"What?"

"I can't believe that worked," Sheppard told him. McKay stared through him, rubbing his head in bewilderment.

"I'm going crazy," he announced.

"You're not crazy. It's me!"

"I'm not crazy," Rodney said obediently, then blinked. "I'm just tired…" he closed the laptop, made a move towards the pills again.

"No, Rodney! Bad! We're just getting somewhere, don't do that."

McKay withdrew his hand, tapped his fingers nervously on the laptop case.

"Is anyone…here?" he asked eventually, sounding as though he felt very stupid for saying it. "No, of course there isn't," he answered his own question acerbically. "You've had a shock, that's all…trauma…horrible day. You're imagining things, go to sleep."

"You're not imagining things. Don't go to sleep. And this isn't Jimmy," Sheppard added for good measure. "Rodney, for a smart guy, you're being really stupid."

A faint, surprised, almost nostalgic smile appeared on McKay's lips.

"Yeah," he said softly.

"…and you make a habit of talking to dead people, which is weird, I know, but I'm not actually dead yet." Sheppard paused, looked closely at Rodney. "You were actually talking to me then, weren't you? You're hearing my voice in your head now. It's not a memory, or your subconscious, or whatever the hell you think it is, Rodney. It's me, I'm here, and unless you help me, I really _will_ be dead very soon. So pull out all the stops, okay? Make a big effort. I need you."

McKay said nothing more. His smile faded. He switched off the light, lay down, and close his eyes.

"…and your response to this is to go to sleep." Sheppard sighed. "Great. Let's go for plan B, then – you can take the pills now if you like." Nothing happened; McKay became inert, his breathing evening out. Sheppard leaned over him in the gloom.

"You know what they say about 'nothing ventured…' so here goes nothing." The Major reached out and 'touched' McKay's face with his hands. "Vulcan mind-meld," he muttered. He leaned closer, close enough that he should have felt Rodney's breath on his face. Closed his eyes. Concentrated. Slipped forward.

Rodney wasn't dreaming yet, which was probably a mercy. That prospect hadn't actually occurred to Sheppard, and it cheered him up no end – he had expected fast-paced Technicolor dreams, erotica, nightmares, who knew what horrors lurked in McKay's weird mind? At first Sheppard wandered alone through a maze of corridors, trying not to give in to the temptation of opening any doors. He walked until he reached one that was already open, and peered through.

It was a small, white room, illuminated by a single bare bulb. A single white chair was in the middle of it, and sitting on the chair was Rodney McKay, looking uncharacteristically relaxed.

Sheppard pushed the door fully open and stepped through. "Hi, Rodney."

"Hey John."

"Weird place, your brain."

"Yeah, I know. Go figure."

"So…I'm still alive in non-corporeal form."

McKay simply smiled at him. "Ever heard the song, 'A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes?'" he asked.

"Um…no. Listen to me. When that Ancient device electrocuted us it stopped my heart, and I got…kinda…separated from my physical body. I've been wandering around like a ghost, trying to communicate with people."

"That's nice."

"No, it isn't nice!" Sheppard snapped in frustration. "What's wrong with you? Aren't you listening to me?"

"John, this is a dream."

"No, it isn't. I'm _here_, inside your mind. Whatever the device did to me it gave me that capacity – I don't think it'll work for anyone else, though."

Rodney smiled peacefully. "I guess we must be on the same wavelength."

"I guess," Sheppard answered, dryly. "But the big deal is – and you _have_ to remember this when you wake up, Rodney – you can't let Beckett turn off that machine. He has to keep it alive until you and I find a way to put me back in my body."

McKay was still smiling at him. It was getting disconcerting. "I'm touched at the faith you have in me," he said, with apparent sincerity.

"Dream-you is really weird, you know that, right?"

"That's because this is just me. No hang-ups, no problems, no emotional baggage. No real life intruding. This is the person I am inside the most distant reaches of my mind."

"You're sickening."

"Yeah," McKay shrugged, appeared unoffended. "Sorry about that. But you were saying…?"

"I'm trying to get across to you just how…" Sheppard broke off. A sharp sound echoed through the small room, and the corridors outside. "What was that?"

Dream-McKay tensed, looked something other than beatific for the first time. "They're here. It's started."

"What? Who?"

"The doors are opening. We have to get out of here. Leave now, if you value your life!"

"Your dreams can't hurt either of us, Rodney…Rodney!" Dream-McKay had disappeared, locked himself away somewhere where the nightmares couldn't get to him. That was what it meant, the doors opening…

Sheppard considered waiting it out in the little room, or leaving as Dream-McKay had suggested, then decided he couldn't trust that sap to have any part at all in Rodney's conscious mind. Probably some cloying expression of a superego McKay had few dealings with. He had to find some part of Rodney more reliable, closer to the surface, to carry his message.

He was going to have to brave the doors.

A/N What will he find behind the doors? Tune in next time to find out :-)


	3. Part 3

_Okay, Johnny-boy, _Sheppard said to himself, standing in the corridor that was the waystation to the various unwholesome portions of Rodney McKay's mind – _will you take what's behind Door 1, Door 2, or go for the mystery prize?_

He headed for the nearest door. They all looked the same, door-shaped, painted white, nothing remarkable. No signs on any of them telling Sheppard what he might expect. He had a sudden crazy notion that he might find John Malkovitch in there.

_Here we go_. Fighting an absurd inclination to knock, Sheppard turned the handle and pushed open Door Number One, expecting…he didn't know what he was expecting. What he saw was a driveway leading to a large white-painted suburban house. Leafy trees lined the drive; a blue summer sky soared above, and somewhere, birds sang. _Nice_, Sheppard though. He glanced around him, but it was as though he was standing in a picture frame; he saw nothing but a dim shadowy colourlessness behind him and to the left and right beyond the drive. It seemed if he was planning on gatecrashing Rodney's dreams – or memories, or whatever this was – he would have to go where he was sent.

He made his way up the drive, and saw an elderly man tending to a wide expanse of beautifully cut lawn. He lifted a battered cap, and Sheppard nodded in response. He headed over and spoke to the dream-person in a polite, comradely fashion.

"Hi. Could you tell me, is this where Rodney McKay lives?"

"This is the McKay residence, yeah," the old guy spoke with a tinge of a French accent. "Their kid is called Rodney. Poor little devil, eh?"

Sheppard grinned at him.

"Yeah, I guess. They at home?"

The old man waved up to the house. "Dunno, son, why doncha go see for yourself?"

Sheppard nodded, walked on as the old Canuck began to weed a flower bed.

"Mathieu," a voice said, behind him. It was familiar, strident and nasal, but with a curious lack of inflection that Sheppard found vaguely unnerving. He turned, not altogether surprised.

"Hi, Rodney. Coming along for the ride?"

"What, you think I don't exist inside my own brain? How do you think I remember my dreams?"

"I guess that's never occurred to me before. Weird, huh?"

McKay shrugged. He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and looked quite relaxed, his hands stuck in his pockets, gazing vaguely into the blue sky.

"So – Mathieu?"

"The gardener. Nice old guy. He used to let me sit in his shed with him, told me a lot of nonsensical fabrications about his days in the army." Rodney smiled rather coldly, an odd expression that made Sheppard feel paranoid. "I got more interest and warmth from him than I ever did from my parents." His voice was completely flat, devoid of feeling, stating a fact.

Sheppard looked at him curiously, wondering if this was the superego creep from earlier, then deciding it wasn't. Though he found it odd that McKay should suddenly become so confiding.

"You're in my head, stupid," the scientist told him, rolling his eyes. "You're going to know all this stuff anyway. And besides, this isn't really me. This is a dream-representation of me, and I think I'm coming somewhat from your head as well as my own, well, not _my_ own of course because technically I'm not me, just a representation of a particular aspect of me, sort of, but…"

"Rodney, stop!" Sheppard rubbed his head. "I have trouble understanding you when you talk physics. You talking _meta_physics is just gonna push me over the edge. So save the explanations for the long winter evenings, huh?"

"The long winter evenings when you decide to take a walk in my brain? You planning on making a habit of this, Major?"

A horrible image rose before Sheppard, of himself bound forever to an existence inside McKay's mind. "Jesus, I hope not."

"Hey, son," old Mathieu called from across the drive, "you goin' up t'the house?"

"Uh, yeah, sure." Sheppard went on his way, with Rodney trailing behind.

"You going to follow me everywhere?"

"Sure. Think of me as your personal guide to the intimate moments of Rodney McKay."

"I was hoping the moments wouldn't be all that intimate. All I want to do is implant a subliminal suggestion in your brain that convinces you I'm still alive in non-corporeal form, so you can get to Beckett in time and stop him turning off my body."

McKay raised an eyebrow. "Nice summary there."

"Can I just tell you? Will that work?"

"You just did, I already knew anyway, and I'm not really here, remember? I'm not really Rodney either. So – no, that wouldn't help. When he wakes up this is just going to be another weird dream to him unless you find some way to make an impact. Do something dramatic."

"Like what?"

"_I_ don't know, this is your Twilight Zone experience. You come up with something. I'm just here to observe."

"So…what are you, psychologically speaking?"

McKay looked thoughtful. They were almost at the front door of the great white house now. A beautifully polished knocker was set exactly in the middle of it. The curtains were impeccably clean and matched in every room Sheppard could see.

"Clinical," McKay remarked.

"What?"

"The house. Clinical. Depressing. It's even worse inside. Oh, and ego."

"Again, huh?"

"Since you only seem to know Freud – which is interesting given that so many modern psychologists consider his ideas to have been largely discredited – you can consider me McKay's ego, with a little of your own mind mixed in."

"Rodney's ego? I would've expected you to be larger."

"Funny, Major."

"I thought you called me John in your head, Rodney. Can we go back to that, please? It's much more friendly."

McKay shrugged and nodded at the door. "You going in there, or are you just planning on admiring the architecture?"

Sheppard gazed at the door, wondering what he'd find inside. Rodney's parents? A kid version of Rodney himself? The mysterious Jimmy? After a moment's pause, he knocked.

He waited a couple of minutes before footsteps sounded in the hall and the door slowly opened, apparently by itself. After a puzzled moment Sheppard looked down and saw a small boy staring up at him.

"Good morning. Can I help you?"

There really wasn't anyone else it could be; the kid looked about seven and spoke like a well-educated seventeen-year-old. Still, Sheppard looked up at his guide for confirmation. McKay nodded. Sheppard smiled down at the young boy.

"Hello, is your name Rodney?"

"Yes, that's correct," the boy replied, with a touch of suspicion. He was small, pudgy with puppy-fat, pale-faced and tired looking; there were dark rings around his eyes. He scratched continually at his left hand, which was covered with some kind of rash, and he wore an inhaler around his neck on a piece of string. His clothes were impeccable; black trousers, white short-sleeved shirt.

"How can I help you?" the boy asked him, impatiently, after a moment. Sheppard shook himself out of his reverie – he had occasionally wondered what Rodney had looked like as a kid, suspecting he might bear a resemblance to Martin Prince from the Simpsons, and he wasn't far wrong – and knelt so as to be on eye level with the boy, still smiling pleasantly.

"I'm Major John Sheppard," he said, offering his hand. The boy shook it, saying nothing. "Are your folks home, Rodney?" Sheppard added.

"No, Major. Are you always this patronising?"

Sheppard, taken aback and somewhat insulted, got up quickly. He saw older McKay smirking at him.

"I'm sorry," the Major said. "Actually, it's you I want to talk to anyway. Can I come in?"

"No," was the brisk reply. "I'm not allowed to let anyone into the house when my parents are away. But we can talk in the garden if you like."

Sheppard nodded, and stepped aside to allow the boy to move past him and into the garden. Miniature-Rodney led the way to a swing seat and sat down, eyeing Sheppard curiously.

"What did you want to talk to me about, Major?"

"Well…." Sheppard found he didn't know what to say. How could he explain the situation he was in to this kid?

"I was a smart kid," McKay's ego said, sitting on the swing beside his younger counterpart. "You don't have to talk down to him. Just…see if you can convince him of the truth."

"Okay," Sheppard dropped onto the grass, opposite little Rodney, who still gazed at him somewhat balefully.

"My time is limited, even if yours isn't, Major Sheppard," he snapped suddenly. "My parents could be back at any minute. They may not like me talking to you." He was looked at Sheppard with his head cocked to one side, wearing the exact same expression his older self used when addressing those he perceived to be terminally stupid.

"Where are your folks?" Sheppard wondered, not sure why he wanted to know but feeling oddly that it was important. The boy's cold expression wavered somewhat; his mouth trembled a little, and he looked away.

"With Jimmy," he murmured.

"Who's Jimmy?"

"My brother." Rodney met his eyes again. Ego-McKay looked on, interested but impassive, showing no emotion whatsoever. "He's in the hospital," the kid went on. "He's been there for almost two years now. But he'll be home soon," he added confidently. "And then things will be better. But you were going to tell me something."

Sheppard nodded, not knowing what to say. This poor kid's big brother was never coming home. Things weren't going to be okay. Ego-McKay glanced at him expectantly, reacting not at all to the quiver in his younger self's voice. The ego. The balancing scales. Rational, objective, unaffected by raw unbridled feelings; no passions, no fears, no desires to be fulfilled. Sheppard disliked this version even more than he did the cloying superego.

"Rodney, what I'm going to say will sound really weird, but I need you to stay with me, okay? Use your imagination."

"Father says I don't have any."

"Um – okay, well, just don't dismiss what I say out of hand, all right?"

"We'll see," micro-Rodney replied, evenly. He looked interested, however.

"Okay," Sheppard took a deep breath and launched into it. It shouldn't be so hard. Kids were more flexible than adults, and tended to believe whatever adults told them.

"You see, I'm a colleague of yours from the future. When you're a grown up. Er…we live in this city together called Atlantis, in another galaxy. I had an accident with a piece of technology which separated my – mind, or something – from my body. I've entered your older self's dreams while he sleeps to convince him that I'm still alive and need his help. And you need to remember to tell Beckett not to switch off the machine, okay?"

Young Rodney stared at him for a moment, his expression unchanged. Then he said calmly,

"My mother goes to a very good psychiatrist. Would you like his number?"

"You're not…wait a minute, just listen to me! This is the truth."

"You're my colleague from the future."

"Not just a colleague, more a friend. My best Goddamn friend if you get me out of this mess."

"Please don't use impolite language in front of me. I'm a kid."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Sheppard grinned in spite of his frustration. "Look, Rodney, I know how absurd this sounds, but you have to believe me. You're my only hope."

"I see. I really should go now. I have to take medication. And probably so should you. Good day, Major."

"Wait!" Sheppard grabbed at him, trying to stop the kid from leaving. Rodney turned, startled, and then his face changed, an expression of horribly intense misery transfiguring it. Sheppard held him by the shoulders.

"What's wrong, Rodney? What's…" he looked up. They were no longer in the garden, but a hospital waiting room.

"They're switching him off today," the boy whispered, his eyes filling with tears. "I told them they couldn't. I yelled and yelled and I kicked Mother and I broke the engine on Daddy's car to stop them from going to the hospital. But they came anyway, and they're going to kill him. They're going to kill Jimmy. They won't even let me see him." Distraught, the boy pulled away from Sheppard and paced up and down the small white room, empty except for them and McKay's ego, who stood in a corner, watching expressionlessly.

"He promised me he'd never leave, and I believed him," Rodney was saying, tears wetting his cheeks now. He was shaking with grief and rage. "I thought he'd come back. Why didn't they tell me? They lied to me!"

"I…I'm sorry," Sheppard told him, not knowing what else to say. The boy came back to him, grabbed his hand.

"You'll help me, won't you? You won't let them switch off Jimmy's machine. If they just leave him alone he'll get better. You'll help me stop them from killing Jimmy, won't you, John?"

Sheppard looked down into the pale, earnest, pleading face.

"Yeah," he said softly, wonderingly. "I'll help you, Rodney. Take me to Jimmy."

The boy led him out of the white room and into a whiter corridor. They walked along it, seeing no one, no doctors or nurses, just a series of white doors. Rodney opened the first one and pointed inside, where a boy lay motionless on a high bed, rigged up to horribly familiar machinery. His head was heavily bandaged, but Sheppard recognised him as Jimmy anyway. The livid-faced man and pretty woman he recalled from his earlier foray into Rodney's memories were standing over the boy. A frightened-looking younger child cowered in a corner.

"That's when Jimmy first came here," Sheppard's young companion whispered. Ego-McKay was no longer in evidence; the boy seemed to have taken over his role as guide. In the hospital room, the boy in the corner turned a tear-streaked face towards his father and whispered,

"Will Jimmy be okay, Daddy? What's wrong with him? Why won't he wake up?"

"Shut up," the man snarled. "This is your fault. If you hadn't run into the road…Jimmy sacrificed himself for you. Remember that. Always remember it. If he dies, it'll be because of your stupidity." The boy whimpered, turned to his mother. She simply looked at him briefly, coldly, then placed a gentle hand on the forehead of the boy on the bed.

"Mommy…" five-year-old Rodney whispered.

In a terrible voice husky with tears that sounded more angry than upset, the woman replied,

"It should have been you."


	4. Part 4

A/N Next part of 'Wavelength'. I've bumped up the rating for some mentions of nasty things that I won't spoil for you -) Also there's a little bad language in this chapter. Nothing frequent or heavy. Thanks very much for everyone for the feedback so far! Hope you enjoy this part...

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Sheppard stared sadly down the motionless body on the stark white bed, a bed that was too big for the kid. He looked lost in it, thin and wasted, eyelids sunken over his closed eyes, face deathly pale.

_Do I look like that now? _Sheppard wondered, grimly. _Is my body already wasting away like this poor kid's_?

Rodney's parents – the angry father, the cold-eyed mother – were staring at him.

"Are you a doctor?" the father demanded, in a hostile voice.

"We'd like to be left alone," the mother added, in a tone that could've cut glass. Sheppard hesitated a moment, glancing behind him. He saw the young Rodney standing in the corner – the seven year old who had accompanied him, not the even younger version of before. Apparently they had jumped back to the day where Jimmy got switched off. Rodney was pale and angry-looking, but showed no sign of recognising Sheppard.

_Man, this is getting confusing. _The ego's voice beside him made him jump.

"Grim bunch, aren't they?"

"Their son is dying!" Sheppard snapped back. Ego-McKay gave him an odd, nasty smile. It was almost…Wraithlike. Sheppard was definitely starting to despise this freak. _This _was Rodney's conscience? No wonder the guy was unpopular.

"Get out," McKay senior was glaring at Sheppard with an intensity that felt like it could burn, a startling contrast to his wife's icy gaze.

"Wait!" it was Rodney-the-kid again, pushing between his parents to stand in front of Sheppard, looking up at him. His face was wet with tears.

"I don't care if you're a doctor or not, tell them they can't do this!" he turned frantically to his parents. "How can you give up on him like that? You can't switch him off like he's a computer or something. He's a human being…he's alive…he's breathing…" the boy clenched his fists at the uninterested expression on his mother's pale face, the blatant disgust on his father's. He burst suddenly into tears.

"Stop snivelling," the older man snapped, and turned back to his dying son.

Sheppard had been too startled for a minute by the young Rodney's words – the exact words his older self had said to Beckett in the infirmary - to say anything. Pulling himself together, he looked down at the sobbing kid half-crouching at his feet, and felt a swell of anger. This felt like a memory, something that had really happened, not just a nightmare…how could they treat their kid like that?

He grabbed McKay senior's arm and turned him roughly. The man was shorter than him but bulkier, and his fury at being manhandled looked about to explode into full-blown blind rage.

"Get your Goddamn hands off me! And get the hell out of this room. My son is fucking dying here, you understand me?"

"Don't let him turn off the machine," young Rodney said, quietly. His voice was very calm now. It was almost a command. Behind Sheppard, the ego snickered. Not the ego…Sheppard should have noticed straight away. This was a different beast. He was…darker, deeper, as though there was a blackness wrapped around him. He seemed almost dim. A more primeval part of Rodney's subconscious…the id. And he was enjoying this. Enjoying watching these people suffer. Even himself.

"You have a really sick mind, you know that?" Sheppard told the id.

McKay senior apparently thought the Major was talking to him, because a thick fist connected suddenly with the side of Sheppard's head. Stunned, he fell, prompting a terrified shriek from child-Rodney and a titter from his id.

"Hit him back!" the boy cried out, pleadingly. "Don't let him near the switch! Don't let her either," he added, pointing to his mother.

"Yeah – hit him!" the id put in, sounding ecstatic at the prospect.

"Shut up!" Sheppard told the creature – but he did as it suggested. He tackled McKay senior, who was going for the life-support machine, brought him to the ground. Wrestled with him there, trying to keep him away, hold him back…he knew he only had to do it for a few minutes.

"I saw his eyelids flicker," a voice said behind him. It was a deep adult voice, like the id's, but the tone was that of a child. It sounded like Rodney as Sheppard knew him – but a very scared and bewildered Rodney.

"I saw his eyes move," he went on, in a hushed, frightened voice, "and I knew he was going to wake up. They wouldn't listen. They turned it off. Just when he was coming back. Just a few minutes…and everything would've been okay."

Sheppard looked up, saw McKay standing over him, wearing his blue scientist's shirt and uniform pants. Their eyes met, and Rodney repeated sadly,

"Everything…"

Child-Rodney and the loathsome id were gone. Rodney's parents were gone. Sheppard got slowly to his feet. He and Rodney stood alone in the hospital room – alone except for a young boy on a clinical white bed, who was slowly opening his eyes.

McKay went to the bedside and gently took the boy's hand.

"It's okay now, Jimmy," he said, softly. "You're coming home."

Sheppard backed away towards the door. He couldn't watch this. His throat hurt. He slipped outside and found himself in the long corridor where all this had begun.

"Jesus, what the hell was that?" he muttered. "Invasive psychoanalysis? Heightmeyer's going to kill me. I guess I've probably broken all the rules." Would it help Rodney, breaking that nightmare? Maybe it would – but it certainly hadn't helped Sheppard's cause any. He tried to be annoyed about that and found he couldn't be. "You ass, why didn't you just talk about it?" he wondered. "I'd've listened…"

"You're really fucked now, right?" the id's voice startled Sheppard for the second time that day.

"What're you doing here?"

"Helping," Id smirked.

"You aren't interested in helping me. You're only interested in helping yourself."

"Helping you is helping myself," Id replied, with a horrible grin. He reached out to touch Sheppard's chest lightly. "Trust me on this. You think I want you dead? Don't be stupid. There're lots of reasons why not."

"And are you going to tell me what they are?"

"I thought I'd let you figure that one for yourself," Id told him. "Come with me."

Sheppard, not having a better idea, decided to follow, as much as he hated this thing. Rodney's subconscious seemed to get worse the further in one went.

"Where are you taking me?"

"To my home," Id responded, with a leer. "You'll like it there."

"Why do I have the feeling that isn't going to be true?" Sheppard sighed.

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He was right – he didn't like the Id's pad at all.

Sheppard had half-expected an apartment with a massive TV, snacks in every room, the universe's biggest computer, and Sam Carter running around naked. What he found was worse.

The place was awful. Dark, dank, and cold. There were stains of blood on the floor. No windows, little furniture except for a thing that looked disturbingly like a torture device of some kind.

Sam Carter_ was_ there …locked in a small room, naked, bound, gagged and covered with her own blood. She'd been raped and brutalised repeatedly – this the Id told Sheppard proudly.

The Major had almost killed the thing outright when he found a facsimile of Teyla in another room, treated much the same way.

"You sick freak!" he hissed.

"I'm a part of your friend's mind. Still want him on your team, Major?"

"Rodney isn't like this. You're…you're the worst parts of his subconscious, buried somewhere beneath the decent parts of him. Even he probably doesn't know you're here."

"Uh-huh. I figured that's what you would want to tell yourself. Anyway, aren't you interested in knowing how I can help you?"

"Not until you tell me why you want to," Sheppard growled back, convinced the creature was trying to trick him. He forced himself to look Id in the eye, while struggling not to throw up. The sight of dream-Teyla so hideously abused and tortured had disgusted and pained him, made him furious, but seeing this foul twisted beast wearing McKay's face was almost worse. Rodney was _harmless_, dammit! Egotistical, true, selfish, sure, infuriating when he wanted to be – but not this. Nothing like this horror that currently stood before the Major, offering him his life back. _In exchange for what…?_ Sheppard wondered.

The Id gave a childlike sigh. "Okay. Since you're so desperate to know…reason one why I'm going to help you: if you die, I'm going to be even more in the firing line. I'm going to be more at risk. You currently provide a kind of buffer between me and all the things that want to kill me. With you dead, I'm less likely to survive the Wraith, for example, and all the other Pegasus nasties.

"Reason two: with you dead, we're _all_ more likely to die. You're pretty much the best chance the Atlantis expedition has of surviving."

It grinned. "There may be another reason too, but I'm going to keep that one to myself for now. Suffice it to say you're a direct route to some of life's greatest pleasures. So – do you want to know how to get out of this situation alive and with body intact?"

Sheppard stared at the Id, tried to determine whether it was serious, telling the truth, or manipulating him for its own gain. It looked back, smiling that horrible smile.

"Tell me," he said, slowly.

"What you need to do," the Id began, sounding disturbingly like Rodney as it expostulated, "is to create a bang so big right here in the depths of the subconscious that when my erstwhile host – if you like to call him that – wakes up, he'll not only remember it but realise it couldn't have come from his own mind."

It was Sheppard's turn to smile unpleasantly. "You reckon I could do that by killing you?"

Id cocked his head. "That would be a bad idea."

"What, then?" the Major snapped. "I'm running out of time. If you're not going to give me anything…"

"Wait, wait. Don't get your underwear in a twist on my account. The stuff you did with Jimmy, that was great – but it was too conscious. You need to find something so deep he doesn't even remember it. Fire it up and set it going."

"That could hurt him," Sheppard told Id, flatly.

"You want to live?"

"Yes, of course I do, but I'm not willing…"

"Oh, you're willing. Come with me. I want to take you to the place where I was born again," the Id leered, "as it were."

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It was another memory, but not a memory. Like the Id itself, this place was shrouded in darkness, enveloped in a thick grey mist. Sheppard could barely make it out.

They were in a room, a richly and tastelessly furnished drawing room. A man of maybe sixty sat in a chair reading a newspaper. Rodney's father, a few years down the line.

"Watch," Id said, softly. It was grinning.

Sheppard sank onto his haunches. McKay senior obviously couldn't see him – this part of Rodney's mind seemed to be observation only.

"How is this going to work? I'm not even interacting…"

"You'll see. Wait."

A few moments past. Sheppard became impatient…and then the door opened, and Rodney McKay came into the room.

He was perhaps twenty, still thickset, his hair longer and slightly lighter in tone than Sheppard remembered from the future. He wore jeans and a loose-fitting white shirt with a black leather jacket. And he looked seriously pissed about something.

"Father." The voice was icy with restrained fury. The man in the chair didn't look up immediately, but finished what he was reading, folded up the paper, and set it down before raising his eyes.

"Rodney. Welcome home, _son_." The tone was deeply sarcastic.

"You've gone too far!" Rodney snapped back. "Too far this time, _Dad_. I'm not letting you get away with this. You can't do a damn thing to me anymore, but I won't stand by and let you treat Jeanie the way you treated…"

"Shut up." McKay senior said, calmly. "You chose to leave this house. This family is no longer any of your business."

"My sister is my business; you and Mother can rot in hell for all I care. Jeanie wrote to me. She told me what you…"

"Then I'll deal with her later."

"Oh, no. No, you won't. You won't _deal_ with her ever again."

The older man got to his feet, slowly, his gaze never leaving his son's face, red and puffy with anger.

"Are you threatening me, boy?"

"I'm taking her out of here. She's coming home with me. Where is she?" he headed for the door. "Jeanie! Where are you?"

"She's not here," McKay senior purred. "She and your mother are out."

"Where? Where, you old bastard?"

"Shopping," the man replied, with a smile. Rodney strode right up to him.

"Then I'll wait," he spat.

"As you please. But she won't leave with you."

"You think?" it was Rodney's turn to smile. "We have everything arranged. You can't stop us. And if you try…I'll go to the police."

McKay senior laughed aloud. "Police! You fool, what do you think they'll do about it?" he coughed abruptly, rubbed his chest as a grimace of pain passed briefly over his face.

"What you did to her was disgusting."

"I'm allowed to discipline my own daughter when she behaves inappropriately."

"You filthy piece of shit," Rodney growled, his face reddening further, "how the hell does 'discipline' equal beating the crap out of a fifteen year old girl?" he leaned into his father's personal space, their foreheads almost touching. "You're a wretch. A disgusting, pathetic, old coward who has to take out his frustrations on his kids because the rest of the world's too big for him to deal with. That's your problem, isn't it? That everyone's done so much better than you? That's why you always had to put me down, take away from everything I ever achieved."

That did it. McKay senior's temper was severely up. He rose to his full height, grabbed his son's shirtfront, almost pulling him off his feet.

"You damned little puppy…how dare you speak to me like that in my own home…" his face was livid, furious, his eyes bulging from his head, wheezing the words out.

"I'm not a kid anymore. And I'm bigger than you. Touch me and I'll wham your ass." Rodney told him, coldly.

"You tell 'im, Rodney," muttered Sheppard.

"Little freak!" McKay senior snarled. "Always thinking you're better than me…" his breath was coming in gasps now; his face was red as a beet, and he clawed at Rodney's shirt. "It should've been you," he gasped out. "Not…brother…not…Jimmy…should've…been you."

Rodney drew back and let the old man fall to the floor. He lay, gasping and shuddering, his hand pressed to his chest.

He didn't speak for a moment. Then he struggled to get the words out.

"Heart…get doctor…"

Rodney didn't move. He simply stood, looking down at his father's shaking body, his face grimly expressionless but his jaw tight. And slowly, the old man died. Sheppard stared in disbelief as Rodney simply stood and watched. His father cursed him to the last, his malignant gaze fixed on the young man until he drew his last, agonised breath…and fell still.

Only then did Rodney cross the room and pick up the telephone.

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	5. Part 5

A/N Many thanks once again for all your feedback and encouragement! Finally we start to get back to reality in this installment, which features Beckett and, briefly, Weir, as well as our favourite dynamic duo -) Please review!

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Sheppard got to his feet as Rodney put down the telephone and, kneeling, checked his father's pulse. His expression remained unchanged as he got to his feet and began to pace the room, occasionally glancing at his watch.

Unable to take any more of this, Sheppard scrambled up and strode across the room to confront the young man who had so calmly watched his father die.

"How could you just stand there?" the Major wondered, disbelievingly. Rodney jumped violently.

"Who the hell are you?" he demanded. "Where did you spring from?"

"He was your _father_, come on! Whatever he'd done, I don't believe you just…" he paused and turned to look behind him. The Id was snickering quietly to itself.

"You saw that?" Rodney demanded, stepping closer to Sheppard. He chewed his lip, and the fear in his eyes dissipated Sheppard's moral outrage somewhat. "Who are you?" the young man asked, again, almost pleadingly. "You weren't there before. I don't believe in ghosts…" he sounded as though he was trying to convince himself of that.

"My name's John Sheppard. Major Sheppard. I'm – a friend."

"Of my father's?"

"No, of yours. Listen to me, Rodney. Right now, I'm lying in a bed in the infirmary…"

"You're _what_? Which infirmary?"

"Never mind. I'm in a sort of coma. Beckett is going to switch off my life support if you don't get to him first and tell him I'm not dead. I'm – sort of on vacation from my body, but I'm still around, okay? When you wake up I need to be able to talk to you and explain this again. When you wake up, you _will_ know I'm there. You got me?"

Rodney had paled alarmingly, was swaying on his feet. Sheppard – deciding his friend must always have had a propensity to faint in the face of danger – reached out to steady him. "You have to listen to me…"

"Jimmy…?" Rodney whispered.

"No, no, we've done this before. I'm _not_ Jimmy. I'm John Sheppard. I need you to remember this. Tell Beckett he can't turn off that machine, because I'm still alive. Have you got that?"

No answer. The young man stared blankly at him. Sheppard shook him roughly by the shoulders.

"Have you got it?"

"Yes…yes!"

"Okay." Sheppard released him, let him stumble away, turned to the Id. It was watching with amusement.

"You _will_ have made quite a bang in the real world, Major, trust me."

"I didn't make this happen. You did."

"Not without your assistance. How did you phrase it – 'invasive psychoanalysis'? Nice term. I must remember that. Oh, and by the way, if you were wondering about the time – it's almost eight am."

"What?"

"I'd hurry if I were you."

"How the hell do I get out of here? How do I wake him up?"

The Id shrugged. "Hey, if that little episode doesn't have him screaming the place down, nothing will. Congratulations, Major – you've just traded your friend's mental health for your own ass. Not that your ass isn't charming – but I hope it was worth it."

Sheppard opened his mouth, but was unable to formulate a reply to that. Fortunately he didn't have to. The room began to swim, then whirl; Sheppard stumbled, dizzy, looked wildly around him for an escape route. The door – somehow he knew he'd be safe if he could only get to the door, get back out into that white corridor.

Staggering as the world spun around him, the Major headed in what he prayed was the right direction. _Could I actually die in here? _He wondered. If McKay woke up with Sheppard trapped in his unconscious mind, what effect would it have on the ethereal Major?

With a gasp of gratitude he found the exit he was seeking in front of him, and half stumbled, half crawled towards it. The door slithered around before his eyes, but he managed to grab it and shove it open as the room and everything in it imploded. His last sight was of the Id leering at him, as he shoved the door closed and leaned against the wall in the narrow, white corridor.

That too began to change, but not as violently or nauseatingly – it simply faded, leaked slowly out of existence. Sheppard closed his eyes, exhausted by his escape – when he opened them, he found himself lying on the floor of McKay's quarters, next to his bed. Rodney himself was sitting bolt upright, fists clenched, eyes wide and horrified, body shaking.

Sheppard felt a pang of sympathy that quickly became self-preservation when he saw the clock.

08:15.

Crap.

"McKay? Can you hear me?"

Rodney's head snapped around; he shot frightened, wild-animal looks around the room, but his eyes didn't rest on Sheppard. After a moment he ran his hands through his hair and slumped back, mumbling, "Just a dream…"

"No, it wasn't a Goddamn dream! Don't you remember anything I told you?"

McKay ignored him, turned suddenly to look at his clock.

"Oh, no…"

"Yeah, seconded," Sheppard grumbled.

The scientist got quickly out of bed and to throw on his clothes.

"I don't believe this. You were my last chance, Rodney. And your subconscious lied to me. Have you any idea how much all of this sucks?"

McKay was already running out of the door. Sheppard followed him.

"Late for a meeting?" he wondered bitterly. But McKay wasn't heading for the control room – he made a beeline for the infirmary, almost knocking over Beckett as he shot through the door.

"Carson!"

"It's all right," Beckett soothed. "I wouldn't've done it without warning you…"

"You don't understand. You can't switch off that machine!"

Sheppard, standing by, felt a sudden thrill of hope. Something had got through! If only it would be enough…

Beckett, meanwhile, was looking unhappy.

"Rodney, lad, we've been through this…"

"No, no we haven't! It's a completely different this. He's still alive, Carson. If you turn off that machine you'll be committing murder."

Beckett gave a heavy sigh, quite obviously not buying it.

"Would it make you feel better if I ran the tests again?" he suggested, calmly. "I will, if it'll help."

"I don't need you to run any tests. I know what you'll find. There's no brain activity because he isn't _in_ there," McKay gestured expressively towards the screen behind which Sheppard's lifeless body was now hidden. "he's…out here."

The doctor tensed. "What're you talking about?"

"The Major. He's not _dead_, he's been – I don't know – disembodied."

A pained look came into Beckett's eyes.

"I know this must be hard for you," he said gently, "after what happened with your brother, but really…"

"Shut up! Just shut up, I'm thinking."

Beckett fell silent, biting his lip. McKay paced up and down the infirmary, went behind the screen to stare at the Major's motionless body. Sheppard followed him, was disturbed to note the pallor of his own still face, how his eyes seemed sunken into his head.

"What're you cooking up, McKay? It'd better be something good, because right now, Bones over there thinks you're crazy. If you don't do better than this, in a couple of hours I'll be dead and you'll be in a straightjacket….oh, God!"

A sudden, violent cramp ran through Sheppard, driving him to his knees with the pain. He slumped, gasping and trembling, reaching out automatically to grab at McKay's ankle, to ask him to do something, anything to help as the agony increased, crying out the scientist's name. Rodney swung around, his eyes wide with alarm. He gave a small, astonished yelp.

Beckett's head appeared round the screen.

"Are you all right?" he asked, tentatively.

"No!" McKay and Sheppard snapped, in unison.

Beckett opened his mouth to reply, but was forestalled when every light in the room suddenly winked out. Instead he exclaimed, "What the bloody hell now…?"

"Power failure. Radio!" McKay snapped. Beckett stared at him blankly before seeing what he was getting at and handing over his own.

"Elizabeth, what's going on?" McKay demanded into the device, as Beckett took out a couple of emergency battery-operated lamps, waving off an alarmed-looking nurse at the same time. Weir's voice came back, sounding tinny and puzzled.

"We don't know, Rodney. Where are you?"

"In the infirmary, with the Major…oh, crap. Carson, is the life support…"

"Aye, it's still working."

McKay sighed in relief. "Okay. I think I've figured out what's going here. I'm gonna talk to Beckett then I'll get back to you. For the moment, don't touch anything. And tell everyone else not to touch anything until I say."

There was a confused pause, then Weir replied, in a tone that said clearly, _I'm trusting you on this, you'd better be right, _"All right, Rodney. We're standing by."

"Okay," Beckett said, in bewildered voice, "what's going on?"

"That's what I'd like to know, too," Sheppard told McKay, staggering to his feet. The pain had receded; his mind was clearing. He felt a little embarrassed about shrieking like that.

"This is what I think is going on," McKay said, beginning to pace again, his expressive hands waving around in the air as he spoke. "when that Ancient device electrocuted Sheppard, he was expelled from – or _dragged_ from – his body."

"I meant about the power outage…"

"I'm coming to that! Just listen, Carson. And keep your hands away from the life support switch. Sheppard wasn't killed – yes, his heart stopped from the shock, but that isn't what stopped him from coming back when you resuscitated."

"Well…"

"He's _here_, Carson."

"Where?" Beckett looked around nervously, as though expecting Sheppard's ghost to jump out of a closet and shout, 'boo!'. The doctor seemed to have forgotten his earlier scepticism; McKay was very convincing.

"Everywhere," the scientist replied, evenly. "In the city itself."

"I don't think I follow you."

McKay sighed in exasperation. "I suppose I should have expected that. Okay, I'll try to explain in words of one syllable, just for you. Listen carefully. Sheppard expelled from body by Ancient device."

"Yes…"

"Sheppard's consciousness transferred into City."

"Right…"

"He's part of the City now, part of its intelligence. Or at least, he's going to be. I'm thinking that's what the Ancient device we found is meant to do – it allows someone to directly interface with the systems in Atlantis. But I don't think the process worked properly. And it's causing trouble. That power outage might've been the result of the City trying to integrate itself with the Major's consciousness, and failing. If that's the case, we could be in serious trouble here, because it's going to happen again – and get worse."

"You've lost me again. What makes you think the Major is…somewhere in the City?"

"He's been talking to me, Carson!" McKay snapped. "At first I thought it was – well, just my imagination going into overdrive, but it's real. He's been talking to me. I think – I think he might've found a way to enter my dreams. It's like he has some kind of semi-physical…no, that's not it. I know how he's doing it."

"You do?" Sheppard asked. "'Cos I don't."

"…he's communicating with me via the city itself. He's not talking to me directly; Atlantis is…relaying messages…" McKay's eyes took on that glassy look that meant he was having a 'Eureka!' moment. "I was hit by the device too. Two people have to be involved, one to integrate with the city and one to monitor him…the process failed, maybe because the device wasn't calibrated properly, or something."

"Um…" was all Beckett could manage. "So you've got some kind of telepathic link with the Major?"

"That's not quite right, but if it helps you to think of it that way…" McKay said, patronisingly. "Look, I know how crazy this sounds, but it isn't anything supernatural, it's science. It's just…weird science. But _if_ it's science, I can deal with it. I can do something."

"You can fix it," Beckett said, with a faint smile.

"I expect so, yes. But you can't turn off that machine."

The doctor nodded slowly. "All right. This all sounds insane to me, though."

"It seems pretty whacked out to me, too. Look if I'm wrong, I promise I'll take a vacation and go into intensive psychoanalysis…"

"Fair enough, but if you're right – what can we do about it?"

McKay sighed. "That's the part I'm having a little more trouble with..."

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Will the answer man figure it out this time? Tune in and find out in the next part of 'Wavelength'!


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